NYU Republicans search for “illegal immigrant”, find protesters
February 23, 2007 
Major media outlets turned out to cover an NYU College Republicans event called “Find the Illegal Immigrant” and the resulting protesters yesterday:
More than 300 protest flooded Washington Place yesterday to protest an NYU College Republican event in which participants attempted to track down a student posing as an illegal immigrant. The protesters, calling the event racist, shut down the street for three hours.
In the end, only 12 people signed up for the competition to seek out the “illegal immigrant,” identified as such by a name tag, in an attempt to win a gift card. College Republican secretary Cait Kannall posed as the immigrant and was identified just before 2 p.m.
The event quickly drew national media coverage, with CNN, Fox News, Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh reporting on it. MSNBC commentator and “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann named College Republican president Sarah Chambers as Thursday’s “Worst Person in the World” in the show’s regular segment.
This isn’t the first time college Republican groups have pulled such a stunt.
The only difference is that the NYU College Republicans haven’t apologized for holding such an insensitive event, nor even acknowledged that it might have offended some people:
[NYU College Republicans President Sarah] Chambers, however, rejected allegations of racism.
“By calling us racists, the protesters are implying that there is only one race of immigrants,” she said.
Yeah, that’s what they’re doing, Sarah. It couldn’t be that racist actions can affect several racial groups at once, right? Like, say, the several groups that are stereotypically known for illegally immigrating to this country? What a stupid way to defend the event.
When I was attending NYU, the NYU College Democrats got great coverage for organizing speeches by Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and David Dinkins, among others. Maybe the College Republicans should look into holding events like that.
